PRAYER OF THE ROSARY: THE OUR FATHER by Atty. Marwil Llasos

The Holy Family with God the Father & the Holy Spirit

The Our Father or the Lord’s Prayer is the best and perfect prayer. It is taught to us by no less than Our Lord Jesus Himself. It is the best prayer because it includes all the forms and types of prayer – adoration, thanksgiving, praise, and petition.

There are two versions of the Our Father in the Bible. The Lukan version is the shorter version (Lk. 11:2-4) while the Mathean version is the longer one (Mt. 6:9-13). The Catholic Church follows the Mathean version in her Liturgy and devotion.

The doxology “for thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory, now and forever” is actually not part of the Our Father. Although it is included in most Protestant versions like the authorized King James Version, it is not clearly attested in the most ancient and extant manuscripts. Bible scholars believe that it is a gloss written by a scribe on the margins when manuscripts where being copied which later on got incorporated into the text itself by later scribes. The Catholic Church does not consider it part of the Bible. Nevertheless, she makes use of it in her Liturgy. The people recite it after the embolism in the Mass.

Our father St. Dominic de Guzman, pray for us!!! The doxology may have been actually taken from 1 Chronicles 29:11: "Thine, O Lord is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.” The Didache or the Teachings of the Twelve Apostles appends the doxology in the Our Father: “For thine is the power and the glory for ever.”

From the earliest days of Christianity, the Our Father is the favorite prayer of Christians. The Didache (50-60 AD) is one of the earliest Christian writings used as a Church manual for pastoral ministry. Chapter 8 of this ancient Christian document requires early Christians to regularly pray the Our Father – at least three times a day! In Catholics double it in their daily Rosary.